Wilde Child EPB

by James, Eloisa

  “Madeline will improve his grasp,” Mr. Wooty said. He gave Joan a direct look. “My niece is a good girl, and I’m pleased to hear that Mr. Murgatroyd was a man of the cloth, albeit for a short period.”

  “Otis is very honorable,” Joan assured him. Then she just burst out with her request. “Mr. Wooty, do you suppose that Otis and I could come along to your opening in Wilmslow and act our parts again? I have always longed to perform in front of a real audience.”

  Mr. Wooty frowned. “As if you were a member of my troupe?”

  “Who’s to know?” Joan asked. “I’m not well-known in Wilmslow, and Otis has never been there in his life.”

  “My understanding is that a lady’s reputation is all important,” Mr. Wooty said. “What of your gentleman?”

  “What?”

  “Lord Greyslick,” Mr. Wooty said, jerking his head toward the other side of the ballroom.

  “Greywick,” Joan corrected. “He’s not mine! He simply volunteered himself to be a chaperone. You needn’t worry about my safety, because he volunteered himself to come to Wilmslow as well, and between him and Otis, I shall be perfectly safe.”

  “Not yours?” Mr. Wooty asked, chuckling. “He didn’t take his eyes off you, Lady Joan.”

  “He could never marry me,” she said, telling him the truth because. . . . why not? “He’ll be a duke someday.” Then it occurred to her that perhaps Mr. Wooty wasn’t aware of her irregular parentage, but he merely nodded.

  Because, in case she had ever wondered, the truth was that all of England knew of her Prussian father and adulterous mother.

  “We don’t even like each other,” she continued. “He is simply a friend of the family, with an oversized sense of responsibility. He’s afraid that I’ll be ruined by playing the role of Hamlet, even here in the castle, but I think he’s far too old-fashioned.”

  “It is a bold move,” Mr. Wooty said, looking up and over her shoulder. “Your marital future is no concern of mine, Lady Joan. I’ve told you before, and I’ll say it again; you’re a rare actress, and if you have a mind to leave the castle—and your father agrees—I would take you with me in the blink of an eye. I would build you a new wagon, fit for my lead actress.”

  “She is a lady, a duke’s daughter, not an actress,” a deep voice said.

  Joan turned. Thaddeus was staring down at them, wearing his most enigmatic, judgmental expression. She sighed. “You really must stop popping up, looking as if you’d like an excuse to stab someone with a rapier.”

  Thaddeus glanced down at his drumming fingers and stilled his hand. He looked back at Mr. Wooty. “Lady Joan will never sleep in a wagon, new or not.”

  “Just as I thought,” Mr. Wooty said, nodding.

  “Thaddeus, stop being so difficult,” Joan said. “Lord Greywick will accompany me and Otis to Wilmslow, Mr. Wooty.”

  “As will my mother, the Duchess of Eversley,” Thaddeus said.

  Joan threw him a grateful look; his phrasing was so wily that she might have constructed the sentence herself. She had a constitutional dislike of lying, but she found that any number of uncomfortable truths could be blurred with the correct wording.

  “My mother complains that standards have fallen since the days of Good Queen Bess,” Mr. Wooty mused. “I can scarcely believe that the duke will allow his daughter to perform on the public stage, let alone in breeches. And yet a duchess will accompany you, as if to no more than a May outing!”

  Joan didn’t correct him, and Thaddeus held his tongue as well.

  “Mr. Murgatroyd as Ophelia poses something of a drawback for the Wilmslow performance,” Mr. Wooty pointed out. “Not, I hasten to add, in the bosom of the family, but before a general audience.”

  “Surely, not an overwhelming problem,” Thaddeus said. “One performance, and you’re on your way, with no one the wiser for one regrettable evening. Surely, such irritating issues crop up frequently? I would, of course, insist on offering compensation for any losses.”

  “‘The show must go on’ is a rule that has resulted in any number of lackluster performances,” Mr. Wooty agreed. “A drunk Hamlet is sad to see, especially during those fight scenes. A colleague of mine had an even worse situation: His Macbeth was having an affair with Malcolm’s wife, and so he skewered his fellow actor in Act Five. That company won’t say the name of the play aloud as a result.”

  “Otis is not violent,” Joan said encouragingly.

  “I’m worried about vegetables,” Mr. Wooty said.

  She knit her brow. “In what sense?”

  “Audiences sometimes entertain themselves by throwing tomatoes if they’re not enjoying the performance,” Thaddeus explained.

  “Even a marrow, now and then,” Mr. Wooty said resignedly. “Though Wilmslow has not proved an excitable crowd in the past.”

  “We’ll hire people to stand at the door and remove any marrows that an audience member might have on their person,” Thaddeus said calmly.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Wooty said, looking relieved.

  “Those men can’t be in livery,” Joan told Thaddeus. “That might lead to someone suspecting the Wildes are somehow involved.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “This brings to mind another problem,” Mr. Wooty said. “The fencing. In Act Five. You’ll have to be even more convincing than I originally thought. Our regular audiences love derring-do far more than long soliloquies.”

  “Lord Greywick will help me,” Joan said.

  Mr. Wooty’s brow wrinkled. “You’ll need to fight a proper duel in Wilmslow. Much of the audience gets through the language just waiting for the swords to come out.”

  “I will instruct Lady Joan in the art of dueling,” Thaddeus said.

  She glanced up at him. “You’ve never been in a duel in your life!” Thaddeus seemed so in control of his every movement and word; it was hard to imagine him feeling the need to do more than glance down his nose at a miscreant who dared insult him.

  “At Eton, we were forced to perform plays,” he said. “I learned how to slide a sword beneath an armpit, for example.”

  “Teach Lady Joan how to fall,” Mr. Wooty said to Thaddeus. “You can work with her the next two afternoons, and I’ll start her with Laertes the day after.” He bounded to his feet. “I’ll agree to Wilmslow. But I won’t tell the troupe until that night, in case you change your mind after playing Hamlet. It isn’t the easiest part.”

  “Will the person who normally plays Hamlet mind?” Joan asked. If she were in the troupe, she would spend all day longing for the moment when she stepped on the stage.

  “Not he,” Mr. Wooty said. “He’s still in London flirting with any pretty girl who will give him the time of day. He has a fine royal nose, and ladies admire it.”

  “But I’ll be on the stage in his place,” Joan said.

  “He won’t care,” Mr. Wooty said with finality. “You’re thinking the life of an actor is all about the passion for the role, my lady. It’s brutal work, and Caballero—as plays my Hamlet—isn’t the sort of man who does more than what’s required.”

  “How disappointing,” Joan sighed.

  “Why?” Thaddeus asked.

  “I imagine actors, especially lead actors, relishing a cloud of Shakespearean language. A sour prince one night, and a villain the next.”

  Mr. Wooty smiled wryly. “It’s a hard life, my lady. For those of us with the passion and the backbone for it, there’s nothing else. Caballero is a brilliant actor, but he will walk out on me one of these days. He’s just biding his time.”

  “Not fair,” Joan said. “So many people would like to be lead actors!”

  “Presumably he has the talent, and the others do not,” Thaddeus said. “He’s playing the roles for money, one would assume.”

  “That’s it,” Mr. Wooty said. “Caballero is impatient with applause, if you can believe it. Another actor can wither if an audience doesn’t like his performance, but he just laughs. All right. Enough of him!”
/>   He clapped his hands. “Time for dinner!”

  Chapter Nine

  “Where shall we practice dueling?” Thaddeus asked Joan the next day, when Mr. Wooty dismissed them after a morning of rehearsal. Otis would be drilled in his lines by Madeline all afternoon, a fate he seemed to welcome.

  “Outside, don’t you think?” Joan asked. “So I can learn how to fall. Also, so that no one can see me make a fool of myself.”

  Thaddeus agreed. To learn how to fence properly, she’d have to take off her coat. And he’d be damned if anyone ever saw her rear again.

  Except for him.

  But he didn’t count. Friend of the family, she had called him.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “We can stop by the kitchens and ask Cook for a picnic,” Joan said.

  Thaddeus had been thinking along the lines of several courses, eaten comfortably at a table. Instead, he was handed a weighty basket.

  “I know just the place,” Joan said, heading down one of the castle’s many narrow corridors. “There’s a lovely spot on the island, on the other side of the apple orchard.”

  To his surprise, the corridor led to the library. Lindow was so sprawling, and had been added to and elaborated upon by so many owners, that once inside a person could lose his sense of direction altogether. They walked through the library onto a terrace.

  “We call this Peacock Terrace. There’s Fitzy!” Joan said, trotting down the marble steps to the lawn.

  Fitzy—an aging but still majestic peacock—paced toward them, dragging his tail in the grass.

  “He’s frightfully old,” Joan said. “Drat! I usually have bread in my pocket, but these breeches are hopeless. The pockets are terribly small; I can’t imagine how you gentlemen manage.”

  The peacock came a few steps closer and flicked his tail, as if to suggest that he could raise it if he wished, but they weren’t worth the trouble.

  “Don’t step forward, because he’ll realize you’re a man and become exceedingly annoyed,” Joan said. She’d taken the basket from Thaddeus and was rooting around in it. “He loathes the male sex.”

  “Every one?” Thaddeus asked, rather startled.

  “He tolerates my brothers,” Joan said. “Isn’t it interesting that he doesn’t mind me, even though I’m in breeches? I gather he responds to something more innate than clothing.”

  Fitzy gobbled up the bread she threw, but Thaddeus noticed that he cocked his head to the side, keeping a close watch. Sure enough, when Joan stepped back onto the path, leaving Thaddeus in clear view, Fitzy’s head jerked up.

  His tail followed: a magnificent fan of blue and green feathers, waving in the breeze caused by displaying all that plumage. Fitzy’s shining eyes bent on Thaddeus, he scratched one claw in the dirt and opened his beak very wide, throwing his head back.

  “Time to go,” Joan said. “He’ll be cross at me for two days for bringing a male into his territory.”

  Sure enough, Fitzy’s curses followed them across the lawn. When they plunged into a wood, they could still hear him issuing challenges.

  Thaddeus followed Joan’s slender, upright form out the other side of the wood and into an apple orchard.

  A white goat gamboled toward them, some strands of grass sticking to his whiskers, a frayed rope at his neck. “Gully! I’m happy to introduce you to Gulliver, who likes to travel, obviously,” Joan told Thaddeus, scratching the goat’s forehead. “Gully mostly spends his time in the orchard, but always goes home to the stable at night, so we don’t worry about him.”

  “Goats are herd animals,” Thaddeus said. “Is he entirely alone?”

  “He’s a Lindow castle goat,” Joan explained. “Not your ordinary type. He seems to disdain his fellows. The stables were built for one hundred and twenty-two horses, but we have far fewer these days, so Gully has a group of friendly nanny-goats who reside with him. Most days he escapes and spends the day in the orchard or the back lawn.”

  “One hundred and twenty-two horses,” Thaddeus said, struck by the number.

  “The stables were meant to hold about that many hounds as well, and then there’s the cow barn and so on. Gully is not fond of other goats, and certainly not cows or hounds. He prefers to be alone.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “He has magnificent horns.” They rose in an extravagant twist above Gully’s head before they curled backward.

  “Apparently he was dangerous before his horns grew backwards. Now he can’t poke them into anyone. Father says he’s a ducal goat, too ornamental for ordinary company.”

  “That’s a rather sad characterization of a duke’s life,” Thaddeus said, taking his turn scratching Gulliver, who had sidled up to him and began sniffing his shoes in a way that suggested he would be happy to start chewing leather rather than grass. “No,” he told him.

  Gulliver obediently raised his head and rubbed it against Thaddeus’s coat, demanding petting in lieu of leather.

  “Father claims it’s a lonely business being a duke. Aunt Knowe just laughs and says that without the family, his head would swell like a bladder,” Joan said.

  “From compliments?” Thaddeus inquired.

  “All the people bowing and scraping.”

  “Not an attractive vision but perhaps accurate,” he admitted.

  “Gully will keep you scratching his head all day,” Joan said. “I’ll distract him with luncheon.” She took the basket again, knelt, and pulled out some grapes. “Luncheon, Gully!”

  Gulliver deserted Thaddeus and trotted over to her. They left him meditatively eating grapes under an apple tree, and continued through the orchard until the path wound down a gentle slope to end at an ornamental lake.

  At some point in the past, the lake had been turned into an artistic refuge for gentlepersons to enjoy nature without a hint of nature’s irritating irregularities; the round lake was dotted with a round island, punctuated by a marble cupola with a round roof.

  “This is the lake that your great-grandfather dug into a circle?” Thaddeus asked.

  Joan nodded. “My grandfather built that temple thing for my grandmother,” she said, waving at the island. “The one that looks like a third of an eggshell with legs.”

  “A monopteron,” Thaddeus observed.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “A circular temple supported by pillars, without a cella, or an enclosed portion.”

  “My father says the island was grassy and perfectly tended when he was a boy, but since he doesn’t care for pleasure gardens, the children took it over years ago, before I was born.”

  “By ‘took it over,’ you mean that they banished gardeners?” Thaddeus inquired. The environs of the lake were overgrown, with huge willows trailing in the water all around the shore, where wild cherry trees stood cheek by jowl with beeches. Reeds grew in profusion, and the lake itself was covered with a carpet of water lilies.

  “Exactly,” Joan said, heading down the low mound that led to the lake. “Apparently, the second duchess—my mother—wanted to clear the nettles and cut the weeds, but my older brothers kicked up a fuss. My father overruled her. The boys were always searching for lost treasure back then, and he thought the pond was safer than the bog.”

  “In lieu of silver, there might be good fishing in the pond,” Thaddeus said, staring down at the water. They were close enough that he could just see a small frog sitting on a lily pad, using its white flower as a parasol.

  “Carp,” Joan said. “Alaric complained last time he was here that the water was choked, and they weren’t growing very large. I’m going to presume that since you do everything well, you row as well,” she said, giving Thaddeus an impudent look.

  He’d captained his rowing crew at Cambridge. “I can row.”

  “Excellent,” she said happily, toeing off her shoes. “Be sure to leave your wig here. And your shoes. One of my sisters-in-law, Diana, still complains about losing one of her shoes in the lake. Now we all drop them here, on the grass.”

  Thadd
eus lifted off his wig and placed it on the slope, running his fingers thankfully through his hair.

  “And your stockings!” Joan added. “Just think about how long it will take to get grass stains out of white silk. Your valet will have hysterics.”

  Thaddeus paid his valet well over the normal wage expressly so that the man would never speak of uninteresting topics, such as stain removal. But he obediently removed his stockings.

  Joan’s stockings were clocked up the side and elegant enough for a prince. Her legs were slender and touched with gold hair that glinted in the sunlight. Her toes curled in the grass, and she looked up at him with a smile that swept him into its joy. “I am having a wonderful day. Even though—”

  She broke off.

  “Even though you’re stuck with me,” he supplied, turning to put his folded stockings on top of his shoes.

  “You have to admit that we haven’t been friends,” she said defensively. “That is, we aren’t friends now either. You are doing a favor to the family, and I realize that.”

  “Why would you say that we’re not friends?”

  “We’re far too different.”

  He glanced down at himself. He had always been tall, but he’d never felt more of a hulking beast in his life. His legs were hairy and bulged with muscle.

  Her eyes followed his. “No, I don’t mean the fact that your legs could provide the supports for a bridge. Nor even that you are a man, and I am only pretending to be one.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Just what do you mean by that?” she asked. “I feel as if we communicated without words over dinner the other night. It’s a new language for me, so I can’t be expected to interpret your every expression.”

  While he tried to think how to answer her, Joan wriggled out of her tight coat. “Luckily, you won’t be shocked by the sight of my rear end,” she said blithely.

  She was wrong. Before he could avert his eyes, she bent over to put her coat down beside her shoes and her wig. Her bottom was surprisingly plump and round for such a slender woman; like her breasts, it seemed to be designed to bring a man to his knees.